do you believe the universe...

[Mercia Blackcat]

There was no big bang. There was a big condense. They can look similar.
Imagine the universe as a sphere.
In the beginning, light had infinite speed so every point in that sphere could be reached in zero time.
All points were effectively in the same place. That's why it was a singularity.
The speed of light fell. Instantaneously, all parts of the universe stopped being in the same place. The universe acquired dimensions.

As time passes, the speed of light continues to fall and the time taken to move between 2 points increases. That gives the illusion that the universe is expanding. But it's not expanding, it's just becoming slower to get about it.
We only consider the speed of light to be constant because it is defined as a constant. But the speed of light is determined by the properties of the universe it travels through and those properties can change.

Our current definition of distance based on the speed of light is like using an icicle as a ruler to measure distance.
We measure the hundred metres on a running track and it's 100 icicles in length.
But in an hour's time we redo the measurement and it's now 110 icicles in length, because the icicle has melted.
If we choose the icicle as our standard distance then the world appears to be getting bigger because every time we make a measurement, it'll be more icicles in length as the standard has melted a little more.
It's the same with the universe. If we measure the universe using the speed of light and the speed of light is falling then the universe appears to expand.

The advantages of a universe condensing out of the energy, rather than a big bang, include..
No need to for theoretical cosmological inflation where laws of physics didn't exist immediately after the big bang
No need to theorise dark matter which no one can find but supposedly makes up 90% of the universe.
No need for dark energy which is apparently so powerful it can push the entire universe apart but which no one can find any evidence of.
No need for there to be anything beyond the universe into which the universe could expand.

A good take on things and some correlation with the conspansion of matter in the universe as opposed to the expansion of space. To my understanding the speed of light has slowed.

If there was a quantum field initially then there would be an infinite ocean of quantum foam that was bristling with virtual particles coming in and out of existence. Zero point energy.

Therefore when the Event came and the universe self-actualised the "Big Bang" would be throughout all space.

Didnt we evolve intellectually because our diet was much broader?

I'm not sure. The primates we evolved from had already developed a larger brain than most animals. Walking upright into the Savannah where the temperature at six foot is cooler than at ground level, we were able to cool our brains which allowed for a larger development. Early modern man who were hunter gatherers had a brain capacity 6% larger than today on average but they did develop abstract thought and language. We've dumbed down since then although our brains are more efficient. Then again looking at modern humans we have become a pretty dumb species that is happy to destroy its own environment.

 

[Sir Lancelot]

Try and imagine a four, five or six dimensional object. Tell me what it looks like.

The fourth dimension is time.

That is another difficult concept.

I can see how a dust cloud could condense to make a sun and planet system. I can see how those planets may have cooled and intense geological activity calmed down enough for liquid water (for planets conveniently placed, like ours) to form, weather systems to be created and an atmosphere to be created.

I can see how the simplest life form needed energy to grown and reproduce, so each step of the way it got more and more complex, resulting in the wide variety of life we have today.

What I struggle with is the idea that the first single cell life form happened. You have chemicals, minerals etc, that are just there. Some react together to change state. But at some point some mixed together in just the right way to produce something that needed energy to survive. Without it, it would die. It would have the same chemical make up but not be alive. With enough energy it could reproduce, but if it died it could no longer absorb energy to reproduce. Even without intellegence, it needed something to survive and had the concept of being dead or alive, then for the successors, born.

Once that happened for the very first cell, that was it, the rest becomes possible. But that first one having this new state unlike anything before, I struggle to get my head around.

Amazingly enough, if you put an egg and a sperm together when they fertilise they give off visible, with the right equipment, flash of light. Can you get your head around the idea that a chemical change can produce unexpected energy?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/sperm-egg-zinc-sparks-1.3553550

 

[Mercia Blackcat]

The fourth dimension is time.

To be honest that is true only in physics, hence the space-time continuum.

In Pure Maths time is not a dimension.

Hence some confusion on the topic of which our understanding is limited.

We can't describe existence without referring to time and we cannot describe time with referring to existence.
PS

Ooops should read.....we cannot describe time without referring to existence.

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A tesseract is a four dimensional cube
Of course the above is an analogy but multi-dimensional objects are theoretically possible in mathematics.
Also infinity doesn't exist, all we can say is that something tends to infinity.
Although Chuck Norris counted to infinity....twice.

 

[shadowplay]

Imho inventing Him was our first tentative steps into science, understanding our world. The second sentence reflects how I feel.

I think God is more of a moral invention. The act of creation isn't all that important in Christian theology, it only covers a couple of pages in the Bible.

 

[Mercia Blackcat]

I think God is more of a moral invention. The act of creation isn't all that important in Christian theology, it only covers a couple of pages in the Bible.

I think the problem is that Genesis was an attempt to write a story that could be understood by more people in general. It took ancient Kabbalistic concepts that described the Ein Sof which was limitless, unending and without form in which there was nullified, hidden, infinite light. The Ein Sof then withdrew and a single point vacuity arose into which the surrounding light poured and the universe was an emanation rather than a creation as such. The Kabbalah states that this "God" was incapable of desire, thought or action.

You can see these concepts repeated in Genesis but woven into a story that I am not sure was meant to be taken literally. Unfortunately Genesis had resulted in the opposite, a belief in a monotheistic God that has the power to act in the emanation which has become a creation.